


Red

by Chibifukurou



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:38:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibifukurou/pseuds/Chibifukurou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Madame Red talks to Vincent Phantomhive. [Spoilers for the Black Butler Anime]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mamaesme (ooka)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/gifts).



> A big thank you to iBear for all of your input and your superb betaing.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This story was written for personal enjoyment and entertainment purposes.

The first words you said to me were, " Your red hair is beautiful, An. The color of spider lilies blazing in the fields."

It was a casual comment, polite and courteous as you always were, but I loved you for it all the same.

You had seen me, the real me. How could I help but love you? You who looked at me as though I were beautiful. It meant everything to me.

I lived for you, but even that was not enough. No matter how I bowed to your wishes, how I clothed myself in scarlet to draw your attention, it never was enough.

You loved my sister instead. I ripped my clothes to shreds the day your engagement was announced. I hated the color red for failing to bring you to me.

Did you notice when I stopped wearing red, when I hid myself in virgin white clothes and sought to purge myself of my hatred? No, of course you did not, your mind was taken over by Rachel and your love of her. I could not compare.

I wore a red dress to your wedding. Showed my pain to the world and wore it as a sign of my love for you. How I hated that dress and veil and everything it stood for. I would have much rather hidden myself in the blacks of mourning, but that would have made you sad. I never wanted you to be sad, not on my account.

I found peace in your presence, in the happiness you and my dear elder sister radiated when together. Did I wish you had married me still? Of course I did, you were my world, but at least I could find peace in knowing that you were happy.

When my father asked me why I did not try to find myself a husband, I could not tell him the truth. He would have told me to move on, and that I would never do. You were my life, my everything, my love for you knew no reason.

Did you wonder why I became so concerned with my future as a doctor? Rachel did, but she was easily reassured when I said I wanted to be ready to deliver your baby. She thought it was for love of her, but it was for love of you.

Everything in my life was for love of you.

When Ciel came into the world, small, fragile, and covered in red, I found that I could love another. This child of your blood, I could give a sliver of my heart to him. It eased the pain of your disregard.

The birth was hard on my sister, she almost bled to death, the red of her life's blood stained the sheets, and I almost let it continue. I almost let her go so that I could have you. Surely, you would allow me to help raise your child if he had no living mother?

I could not help but love her though. I performed a miracle and saved my sister’s life. Your gratitude for that cut like knives sliding into my heart, but I had learned what I needed to.

For all I loved you, I did not love you enough to hurt my sister.

I went to a soiree a few years after Ciel was born, and there I met the man I chose to marry. I did not love him, how could I when my heart was yours? Still, he was a good man and he gave me a child. I was happy for the first time since Rachel told me of your engagement.

I still wore red, still wore the loss of you for the world to see, but I had found peace with a man I might someday love. It had come in a different form than what I had always wanted but still, it would have been enough.

Could have been enough, had the unthinkable not happened. A runaway carriage, a horrible accident, and everything was ripped away from me again. My husband, my baby, they were ripped away from me in a haze of pain and blood.

I wondered why you did not come see me as I lay in the hospital ward, even as I prayed that you would stay away. I was once again dressed in virgin white, only this time it was sullied by my blood, by my failure to protect everything that mattered to me.

The day I was released I dressed myself in a fine red dress and went to see you, did you know that? No, you couldn't because I never arrived, I never saw you again.

You, my sister, even my precious Ciel were taken from me by burning red flames. The stain of my failure was spreading.

When I threw myself into my work that time, it wasn't because I wanted to forget you. It was because there was nothing else for me in the world. My sister had died with the man she loved and left me utterly alone.

I hadn't felt so hollow since the day I first met you and fell in love. There was nothing but ashes left where my heart used to lay. I think perhaps I went mad with the sorrow. I went through the motions of treating my patients without passion, without feeling, until the day she came.

A woman of ill repute, far from the first I'd treated, far from the first who'd chosen to have their womb removed and their child with it, but this time it was different.

I had had everything taken from me, stripped away, and this woman treated the precious life she carried like it was rubbish. I'd killed a child, a baby, and she'd made me do it. She didn't deserve to live.

That thought echoed through my mind, growing stronger, until I could do nothing but follow along with it. She didn't deserve her life, so I took it from her. I destroyed her.

It was in that moment, when my skin and clothes were stained red with her blood, with my success, that he came to me. My Savior, my Grell.

I was no longer you’re An, I was his Madame Red.

Even as I lay here dying by his hand, I don't regret that. He helped me to love the color red again, to become the woman you had seen all those years before.

How can I regret once more being the woman you loved?


End file.
